Switzerland Names 2014 FIL Championship Roster

Feb 25, 2014

from press release

ZURICH, SWITZERLAND -- Swiss Lacrosse has
announced the final roster that will travel to Denver, Colorado for
the 2014 FIL World Championships in July. Switzerland will be one
of 38 teams that will compete July 10th-19th in the quadrennial
world-wide lacrosse tournament. Led by head coach Eamon Thornton,
the team has completed the long selection process to meet the 23
man active roster requirements of the tournament. The selection
process started last summer with multiple training camps and
scrimmages with the final selection tryout taking place in
Wettingen a week ago. Coach Thornton and his staff had to cut from
roughly 50 players down to 23 plus three alternates in the final
training weekend.

"The biggest difficulty with making the final cuts to any team
is just how close most people are to making it or not making it."
Thornton said, "For this last cut, however, everyone is "good
enough" to make the team. Instead it comes down to choosing the
players that fit into certain slots. Who's going to be able to make
this kind of play when I need it in a game? Who can I rely on when
something has to happen? These final cuts are made on much less
tangible criteria that's often hard for coaches to explain and
equally hard for players who are being told that they're
"alternates" to hear."

The team includes a mix of players with different strengths and
weaknesses. This mixture will help all of the players grow as
they prepare for the tournament. Players with higher lacrosse
knowledge can pass that along to other players, while the more
athletic players will help push the conditioning of others.
It is this mixture that has already helped the growth of the team
over the past few months.

Coach Thornton went on to say, " Guys are really starting to buy
into our system. The transition from their previous coach to me has
not been an easy one in some ways. Having worked with him for so
long, many of our returning players seemed hesitant to run things
differently, but during this last training session, I think we were
able to make some good strides. As I learn more what they can
handle, they are also opening up to trying some new things. As
always it's a process, and we hope to peak this July in
Denver."

The team will continue training throughout the spring to gear up
for their trip to Denver. They will travel to Stuttgart for a
tournament that will feature Team Germany, Team Austria, Stuttgart,
and Munich, among others. To prepare for the altitude (1500m)
of Denver, the team will play Team Austria in Davos followed by the
Berlin Open.

Swiss Lacrosse is responsible for managing the Swiss Lacrosse
League (SLL) and the growth of the sport in the country. The
newest expansion of the sport was the formation of an U19 team
about six months ago. Before the formation of the team,
younger players were forced to play against players 5-10 years
older than they. The ages in the SLL range from 15-32 and
with that comes the physical difference of these players as well as
trying to make the league safe and competitive with the large
spread of players.

Swiss Lacrosse President Daniel Hagnauer stated, " For any sport
it is of utmost importance that one has a solid base of young
players, a youth program that provides both the elite level of the
sport and the depth of the Lacrosse community. Through the youth
program we seek to solidify the tremendous progress we've had in
the past years and reach level in terms of size that allows us to
get support (infrastructure and capital) from the government. "

The major factor that will set this team apart from other
European teams attending the FIL World Championships is that this
team is made up of only players that play in the SLL. Many
other countries will use American or Canadian players that have
ties to country but may not have played in their home league.

It is this policy that Hagnauer attributes the growth of the
sport in Switzerland, "Denver 2014 will be the fourth major event
where we've followed this policy and it has contributed greatly to
the growth of the sport as home grown players that got exposed to
the high level of play at those events return to their respective
clubs with a backpack full of experience that they share with their
team mates."

The other bonus to this policy is that local players feel
that they have a true chance of representing their country without
someone coming from overseas to take their spot.

Team Switzerland competed in the FIL World Championships when it
was last held in Manchester, England in 2010. The team was in
the orange division that included Ireland, Slovakia, and South
Korea. They went 1-2 in group play and went on to go 2-3 in
bracket play. They finished with an overall record of 3-5
which ranked them 23 out of 30 teams. The team will look to
improve on their showing in Manchester and the growth of the SLL
over the last four years will be a major contributing factor to
their success this summer.